André 3000 used to be famous as one-half of Outkast. But after releasing New Blue Sun on Friday, November 17, André 3000 is firmly cemented as a famous flutist. A solo album 17 years in the making, New Blue Sun predictably garnered mostly positive and widespread reaction over the weekend, even though it isn’t the rap album people have been desperately awaiting. Among the reaction was a rumor about whether André 3000 played the flute on Future’s “Mask Off,” arguably as surprising as the strictly instrumental album itself.
On Sunday, November 19, several outlets ran with a comment from Metro Boomin, who produced “Mask Off” for Future’s 2017 self-titled album. OnThinIce on X (formerly known as Twitter) cited a since-deleted post and wrote, “Metro Boomin reveals André 3000 played the flute on the intro of ‘Mask Off’ [flame emoji, flute emoji].” Other users have since added the context, “Metro was joking here. André 3000 did not play the flute on Mask Off. The flute is part of the sample.”
If that weren’t enough, Metro Boomin commented on Complex‘s Instagram post, including a video of Metro saying that Andre played the flute on “Mask Off” before playing the track. Complex aggregated it with the framing that André 3000 did, in fact, play flute on “Mask Off,” but Metro Boomin quickly shut that down in the post’s comment section.
“How are you all even considered a real news outlet?” Metro wrote.
Luckily, to avoid any future confusion, people can turn to eight New Blue Sun tracks if they want to hear André 3000 playing the flute.
New Blue Sun is out now via Epic Records. Find more information here.